PRINCE GEORGE’S CHILD RESOURCE CENTER
“The company would stand behind its work....”

Marti Worshtil
Executive Director

Since 1990, the Prince George’s Child Resource Center has touched the lives of nearly half a million children and their families in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. Founding Executive Director Marti Worshtil has seen the organization grow dramatically into a vibrant, complex agency. The Center focuses on three primary services: training child care providers; family support, including literacy and parenting classes, coordination of services, in-home interventions, and ESL training for immigrant families so they can succeed in America; and the Healthy Families program, providing long-term in-home services for at-risk, multi-problem, first-time mothers and pregnant women to achieve healthy birth outcomes and to prevent child abuse and neglect.

“Our first clue that we had outgrown our bookkeeper came a few years ago,” Worshtil recalls. The organization had received a foundation grant to upgrade its infrastructure. “A consultant came in, looked at our computer system and shrieked. We needed someone to help us: our systems were still back in the Dark Ages.”

The organization hired someone, and that process worked for a few years, but it became apparent that more support was needed. “What appealed to us about Your Part-Time Controller was that if the person they sent didn’t work out, the company would stand behind its work and send somebody else. We wouldn’t be totally dependent upon one single individual. Getting ready for the audit would not be contingent upon one person. That was wonderful!”

“We like Eric and his people not only for their skills but for their personalities as well,” she says. “I was on a YPTC panel with a room full of CPAs and was amazed at how relaxed everyone was and how they were having a great time. I think this type of work, where the staff have flexibility over the number of hours they work and the ability to go to several clients, attracts a certain type of person.”

Over the years, two YPTC associates have served the Center as its accounting needs have evolved and an increased time commitment was called for. Today, the Center has 40 separate funding streams that start and stop at various times, with income from county, state and federal grants, foundations, donations and fees for service all needing to be tracked and allocated according to multiple programs. Like most successful nonprofits, there are a lot of balls always in the air,” she notes.

Two factors that helped convince the Center’s finance committee and board were YPTC’s abilities to create adequate cash flow projections and to make financial information understandable. It sometimes takes a long time to receive the funding from government grants, which makes cash flow projections challenging. The Center’s finance committee relies heavily on the bottom-line and wants a clear picture every month of the organization’s financial picture. “When Your Part-Time Controller was being interviewed, our president asked Eric, ‘I know you know numbers, but how good are you at getting this information to board members?’ The answer is, they’re very good at it,” Worshtil says.

“Each nonprofit board has its own personality. Some are overwhelmed by finances: mine wants lots of information. They love charts and dashboards. I think Your Part-Time Controller is very good at that.”

This dedication to excellence in accounting, reporting and presentation has manifested itself in another critical area. “We have been lucky,” she adds. “Tracking our finances has been so exacting and professional that our funders have stuck by is. No one has pulled out at all.”